


Living

by GeorgeFredSlytherin



Category: Code Geass
Genre: F/M, Suicidal Desires, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21800809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgeFredSlytherin/pseuds/GeorgeFredSlytherin
Summary: Suzaku's life after the requiem. The first part is while the characters are still alive. The second part is very depressing.Note: Do not read if depressed.
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Do not read if depressed.

There are movies about living forever. People seek the Holy Grail, some enchanted object or simply the power to live.

Suzaku hates them.

* * *

It takes him twenty years, to realize that his life is going to be longer then it’s supposed to be. In hindsight, it probably should have taken less time, but his family has always looked youthful, even in old age. It is only when Milly gets her first gray hair – she groans about it for ages and proceeds to dye her hair every color of the rainbow – that he starts to wonder. He looks at himself in the mirror, inspecting for wrinkles, smile or frown lines – the latter should definitely be there – but there is nothing. His face is as smooth as the day he was ordered to live. He is never going to grow old. He is never going to die.

He hates self-pity, but now he lets himself cry.

* * *

Rivalz marries a pretty brunette named Jasmine. Milly sits with Nina at the wedding and laughs her head off when Rivalz drops the ring. He throws an annoyed smile in her direction, but his eyes fly back to his bride. He loves her, Suzaku knows.

He is glad.

* * *

Nina and Milly bunk together after Nina graduates. Nina spends the time working for humanitarian companies. Milly keeps up with her news job. Eventually, she becomes famous for pulling off insane stunts.

Suzaku isn’t surprised. That girl was made for greatness.

* * *

Lloyd dies holding Cecile’s hand. She is the only one – save Suzaku- who has ever been able to put up with his antics. Suzaku has always wondered if she loved him. Cecile carries Lloyd to the _Zeus_ , his newest knightmare. She had thought that he would be happiest there. He looks at her as he dies, whispering _thank you_ , before he passes.

Suzaku stands at his grave and wonders if, perhaps, Lloyd learned to love.

* * *

Kallen adopts when she’s thirty-five. The baby is tiny, so very tiny. She’s a girl and Kallen names her Shirley LuLu. Someday, she will tell her daughter about the man who saved them all, and his friend, who is still saving them. Now she holds her tiny daughter and wishes Lelouch would know how grateful she is for this life.

* * *

Nunnally dies. She hits a bump at the top of the stairs and tumbles out of her chair. There is blood all down the stairs and her broken shell of a body. Suzaku thinks of a different set of blood-covered stairs, of a dead woman with her terrified daughter.

The body is old though. Gray and full of wrinkles from a life well lived. Nunnally had lived, had seen her peaceful world and now, it is over.

He envies her.

* * *

Cornelia’s daughter dies in a fiery knightmare crash. Everyone weeps at the funeral, except Suzaku. The girl had taken after Cornelia herself. She wouldn’t have wanted to go any other way.

* * *

Rivalz grand-daughter comes to him at the funeral. Her eyes are shining with tears.

 _Will you tell me stories about them?_ She asks, and Suzaku can’t say no.

 _There was this cat named Arthur_ , he starts. The small smile on his face is hidden by the mask.


	2. Let me sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, do not read if depressed

It takes him two-hundred years, to meet her again.

She looks exactly the same and completely different.

Her green hair still flows down her back, but her golden eyes are so much older than they were before.

 _Give me geass_ , he says.

 _What is your reason to live_? She asks, and he laughs.

* * *

His geass is to heal people. When he finds out he laughs till he can’t breathe because _of course it is_.

He helps out at hospitals – don’t ask how he gets in - mostly with the terminally ill. They recover pretty quickly, in whatever hospital he is in at the time, but he always moves on quickly. He cannot gain too much attention, or someone will ask him what the cure for cancer actually _is_ , and he can’t exactly tell them it’s his magical, eye-changing power.

C.C. said geass would isolate him, but he’s been isolated for a long time. If anything, he has more company now. There’s green-hair constantly swishing behind him, usually eating greasy pizza and/or holding a very old, dirty and frayed stuffed plushy. The first time he goes to use his power, she shows up wearing an incredibly sexual looking candy striper outfit. His face goes as red as a tomato.

 _Two hundred years and you still blush at a pretty girl_ , she says, when she’s finished laughing.

He turns away. _You’ll draw too much attention. Go change._ Pouting, she does.

* * *

Only one year passes before his geass stops turning off. It’s kind of humorous, actually, the way it works when he’s not channeling it. It affects everyone. He’ll walk through a crowd and the mass of people will all perk up. Those with coughs will find themselves mysteriously clear-throated. Those heading to the doctor will no longer need one. One man, after coming in contact with Suzaku’s geass, no longer needs a kidney transplant simply because, for no understandable reason, he simply doesn’t have or even _need_ a kidney in the first place.

* * *

Six months later, Suzaku enters C.C.’s room with a gun in hand. She looks up at him, confused. Then she sighs. Both of his eyes have the geass sigil.

_This is still your wish, right? To die?_

_It wasn’t for a while, but-_

_I’m not judging you,_ he says calmly. She takes the gun, holding it out in front of her. It’s fully loaded.

 _All you have to do is shoot me, right?_ He asks, and she nods. _Won’t the geass Lelouch put on you-_

 _No._ Suzaku interrupts. He gives a bitter smile. _It WANTS this. I can feel it pulling me. If I had no control, I probably would have grabbed your hand and used you to shoot myself already. This is, after all, the way to live forever._ She inspects the gun for a long time. When she looks back up at him, her gold eyes are glistening with tears.

_Why are you doing this, Suzaku Kururugi?_

_Don’t worry about me C.C._ He answers. _This is all purely selfish._

She lines up her shot perfectly. As he dies, she smiles, pulls him close and whispers three words.

_Sure it is._

When he wakes, his head is in the lap of a dead woman. He picks her body up, carries it outside and buries it. He doesn’t leave a gravestone. No one but him knew her anyway. Going back inside, he grabs the gun and shoots himself in the head, just to see. When he wakes up, he smiles. The _live_ geass hadn’t touched him. It’s gone. He pulls himself out of the puddle of his own brains and leaves.

* * *

The miraculous healings around the world stop. The old, naïve Suzaku would have felt guilty. This Suzaku just hopes they are grateful for those who were saved.

* * *

C.C. is gone, and sometimes that hurts. He travels, trying to find someone who can take his code, someone determined enough to fulfill their wish, but something is strange. In all the time he travels, he finds no one like him. He goes to the nearest still intact thought elevator to investigate.

There is no one there.

C.C. had shown him all the different places where the geass order had planted themselves. Now he races to each and every one of them, and finds nothing. They are all gone. The Geass Directorate is gone. Somehow, Suzaku thinks the rest of the geass users might be dead as well. And he is left behind.

Again.

In a last-ditch effort, Suzaku heads to Kamine island. The last time he had seen it, the thought elevator there had been wrecked. It was only possible to leave or enter with a code-user, but he was one now, so that wasn’t a major problem. He enters the world of C, and freezes.

It looks exactly the same as it did three hundred years ago, when he and Lelouch had created their horrible plan. Rock is strewn everywhere. The conscience of man is around here somewhere. He can feel it’s presence. Mentally he scoffs. The conscience of man is not God. He had decided that a long time ago. If it were, the world would just fall apart. Then, a voice comes from behind him.

_Hello Suzaku._

_Marianne,_ he says, turning and positioning himself in a fighting stance. _How are you still alive?_

 _Mmm._ Marianne hums. _More importantly, why does it look like you’re going to fight me?_

 _Why wouldn’t I?_ He snarls.

 _Because you want to die,_ is her simple answer. _I could do that for you. End it._

 _And then you’d escape, right?_ He asks.

 _It’s been three hundred years, Suzaku,_ she says. Does it matter? _That harsh, cruel world?_ His fierce stare makes her stop for a moment. Then she lets out a beautiful laugh.

_Why did you kill C.C., Suzaku?_

_Why wouldn’t I?_ He answers again.

 _That question can’t be the answer for all of your problems,_ Marianne says.

_Why? It’s not like I particularly care anymore._

_Don’t you? Why did you take C.C.’s code?_

_What does that matter?_ He yells.

 _Because you didn’t have to,_ she answers calmly. _You didn’t have to save her, but you did._

_I was already going to live forever. She didn’t need to. What would be the point of that?_

_A companion?_ Marianne asks, stepping forward. He takes a step away from her, and, when had he fallen from his defensive position? She keeps moving. Gently, ever so gently, she puts her hand on his shoulder. His eyes connect with hers. _You could have had a companion_ , Suzaku. _You two could have been together forever, but you let her go. Why?_

_I don’t know._

_And if I try to go through that door_ , suddenly there’s a door behind him, _will you stop me?_

_Yes._

_Even if it means you’ll never die?_

_Yes._

_Why?_ She says softly.

 _I don’t know,_ he snaps. _I don’t – I can’t -_

 _It is because you are not selfish_ , comes another voice. _You’ve been convinced for so long that you are selfish, Suzaku, but you aren’t._

He whips around. _C.C.?_ He asks, and curdling dread fills his stomach. _I thought you died! You were supposed to die!_ He runs to her. _I’m so sorry C.C. I tried! I wanted_ –

She’s smiling at him. _I know._ She leads him to a large rock and sits him down. _Suzaku, do you know what every code bearer has in common?_ He shakes his head. _Eventually, every single one wants to die, and every single one would do anything to reach that goal. Every single one except you._

He’s still just staring, confusion all over his face because, what does that matter? What does it matter that for some screwed up reason, his screwed-up brain still cares about people?

 _So, you saved me_ –

_So I could get rid of the geass!_

_Sure. You saved me and I woke up here._ He opens his mouth, and she puts one finger against his lips.

 _The collective conscience of man is not God, but it is strong, and it is what created geass, and it has been waiting._ He tries to say something else, but her hand is still over his lips. _**It has been waiting** for someone like you_.

Which is just too much for him. He stands up, pushing her gently away. Evidently, she doesn’t like that, or maybe she just wants to give him some exercise, because she attacks him. It’s a surprisingly difficult fight, probably because she lived for thousands of years. He suspects she let him win when he finally pushes her down, trapping her body with his.

Marianne snickers behind them. Laughing, C.C. tips Suzaku off her with one hand. He’s so red he doesn’t even protest. She climbs onto the rock he’d previously been perched on and looks down at him as he props himself up on his elbows.

 _Do you want to hear the rest? Or are we just going to sit around?_ She asks.

He sighs and nods. _Fine, go on._

_The history of geass isn’t certain. All we know is that it’s been around for a long time, and that it was created because someone wanted power and immortality. Then, when they found out that eternal life was horrible, they used their selfishness to inflict it on someone else. That is the cycle of geass. Either someone lives forever, or forces someone to live forever for them. Like you could have done for me. But you didn’t. Evidently, the creator of geass saw, because when I woke up here, it was here to greet me. It offered me a deal. I could move on and die, or I could live for a little while longer, and remove geass from this world. After what you had done, Suzaku – there was only one answer I could give._

_So we_ – the collective conscience in Marianne’s form says – _decided to end it. You broke the cycle of selfishness, Kururugi. That’s all I’ve been waiting for, and then C.C. joined you._

C.C. looks up startled. Evidently, she hadn’t been able to recognize the sacrifice of living another hundred years to save them all.

_We removed the Geass Directorate slowly from your world. C.C. would go to them and tell them of what was happening, of their escape. Unsurprisingly, no one turned down the chance. After all, geass users do not have to take a code, thus they will not live forever. It is only the code bearers who wished to leave your world. The geass users will never bear codes now, and geass will die._

Her smile turns into a frown. She sighs. _But you had to be last. Your humility had to continue, and I had to know if it did._

 _That’s why you asked me if I would stop you?_ Suzaku asks. She nods.

Partially. _I also needed to make you understand. You have to see, a little. I think your stupidity might pervade all of death otherwise_ , she says with a teasing smile.

 _I-I don’t really understand,_ Suzaku says.

 _You don’t have to_ , C.C. says with a slight smile.

He looks at her, confusion on his face that suddenly clears. _I’m done?_ He asks. _I can – I can stop now?_

C.C. smiles. It’s a happier smile, even, than the one she died with. _You’re done, Suzaku. You’re done._

He steps towards her, his smile matching her own.


End file.
